Outdoor grilling of meats is an enjoyable event for many people, whether it be in the individual's own backyard or in a park setting. In recent years, gas-fired grills with a bed of ceramic coals have become popular. They are convenient to use. Any flare-ups from fat drippings onto the ceramic coals is minimal and, if it does occur, is readily controlled simply by reducing the supply of gas to the grill. Clean-up after grilling is also minimal. Normally, only the cooking rack of the grill needs to be cleaned to remove meat or other food residue. Grilling with charcoal, though, is still enjoyed by many people and is highly preferred. Drawbacks associated with the charcoal grilling such as flame flare-ups and charcoal ash disposal are more than offset by enhanced flavor of the food that comes with the charcoal flame and smoke.
Attempts have been made to improve charcoal grills so that the advantages are retained, but the known disadvantages of flame flare-up and ash disposal are alleviated or eliminated. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,574,770, 5,097,817 and 5,566,607 contain examples of outdoor grills where attempts have been made to catch or divert fat drippings to prevent grease fires, i.e. flare-up. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,967,613, 3,898,028, 5,121,738, 5,347,978 and 5,566,606 contain descriptions of gas-fired grills with special means to prevent or at least alleviate flame flare-up. They all appear to be effective to a limited degree. However, some of the means used to alleviate or eliminate flare-up appear expensive to manufacture or are particularly adapted to gas-fired grills only. None have addressed the problem of charcoal ash disposal.
In accord with a need experienced by many charcoal grill aficionados, there has not been developed an outdoor grill designed to use charcoal which address the problems of flare-up from fat drippings and charcoal ash disposal. The problems are solved without an exorbitant increase in grill manufacturing cost. At the same time, all the known advantages of conventional charcoal grilling are retained.